Life as I know It

Monday, March 23, 2009

Oh, it is amazing how energized I become in the spring. It is nearly dark, but I can't stop gardening. So much going on and I don't want to miss a thing.

This afternoon Jeff and I put up a beautiful 8 foot tall tepee in the middle of the garden. I am going to grow 'Painted Lady' runner beans and tiny pumpkins all over the framework. I will love sitting in there and watching the birds, and I know that my grands will love it too.

So much enjoyment out of just a few dollars worth of supplies and a mound of seeds I saved from our porch garden beside the sea in Maine.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I fell in love with old fashioned (and sensible) farm sinks years ago when I visited my dear friends Jack and Jane Hogue at their farm Prairie Pedlar in Odebolt, Iowa. All across the countryside and back to California I searched and searched for such a sink, but to no avail.

A couple of years ago we were scouring Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley, California, and I found the sink I wanted, but alas, it had just been sold. We were planning to visit a niece and a friend in San Francisco for a few days and decided to check back again, though the sales staff said they seldom find the big farm sinks. As we were leaving one of the yard workers said, "Well, if you're going to be around for a couple days just leave me your number." We gave him our number and figured we'd never hear from him again, but we did. The next morning he called us and said, "Some people wanted to get rid of a sink in a kitchen they're demolishing, so we went in, carefully removed it, and brought it to the yard. Can you come see if you want it?"

We zoomed over the bridge and returned to Ohmega and lo' and behold, it was the one of my dreams. It took 3 men to load the 500 pound cast iron baby into the back of Jeff's Saab wagon, but they did it.

We designed our entire kitchen around the sink, but it was worth every gray hair and the back breaking task of moving it around. We had the porcelain refinished, but the job is a poor one, so Jeff is going to learn how to re-do it. I'll add it to his list.